


just drink the water where you came from

by eleanor_lavish



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-24
Updated: 2010-10-24
Packaged: 2017-10-17 21:27:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/181323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eleanor_lavish/pseuds/eleanor_lavish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s the history that you own, and then there's the history that you don’t talk about, but that lives deep inside you all the damn time.  Steve and Chin have that kind.  Also, there is a lot of frottage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	just drink the water where you came from

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Kings of Leon's "Retroactive". Writing Chin Ho Kelly is a challenge and a HALF, man. Also, apologies for not having more sexy motorcycle action in this - I promise it will be there next time! Thanks to [](http://tricksterquinn.livejournal.com/profile)[**tricksterquinn**](http://tricksterquinn.livejournal.com/) , my gimpy, amazing beta. All mistakes are mine, all excellent grammar is hers. Thanks also to [](http://leupagus.livejournal.com/profile)[**leupagus**](http://leupagus.livejournal.com/) who is dragging fandom into H50 one drunken night at a time.  <3

It is a rare weekend when Steve has been mostly assured by the Governor that she will _not_ be calling them in on a case for at _least_ 48 hours, thanks in part to the three solid weeks they’ve just spent stopping a drug shipment from Fiji worth a cool $15 million. They celebrate at Steve’s this time, drinking beers on the beach until Danny nearly falls asleep in the sand and Chin packs him off in Kono’s car to get some rest in before an afternoon with Gracie.

Chin Ho stays, sprawled out in one of Steve’s deck chairs, and Steve has another beer, his toes curling into the cool, soft sand. It’s dusk, and a myriad of insects cluster around the patio lights behind them, buzzing in annoyance at the smell of citronella that wafts up from the tiki torches along the path.

“I forgot what a nice place this is,” Chin says, tipping his head and giving Steve a smile. Steve smiles back because he can, here. Because Chin’s smile is infectious, even if he has no idea.

“Better than an aircraft carrier,” Steve replies, and smiles wider when Chin laughs.

He doesn’t see Chin smile on the job much - partly because the job usually sucks, and involves Kono in danger, or Danny getting shot, or kids or drugs or death, nothing worth smiling about, even though Steve does anyway. Steve laughs in the face of danger, just like he shrugs off rules and regulations. The Navy’s had him on a short leash for years, and Steve thinks maybe being back here, back home, is shaking a few old screws loose.

But Chin doesn’t smile on the job because the job is hard, and because he has to prove himself a million times more than any of the rest of them, even Kono, green out of the academy. Steve hates that, hates that he can’t do anything to fix Chin’s broken reputation but take Chin along on every hard mission they get, let him earn his stripes all over again, fifteen years later.

He glances over at where Chin is sitting. Even relaxed, he’s all lean lines and sharp angles, dangerous. _Quick, precise, agile._ All the words Coach had drilled into Steve when he was an up-and-coming star on the field, watching Chin’s tapes over and over in the locker room, trying to figure out how to combine Chin’s grace with Steve’s own brand of brute force.

When Chin glances back, there’s a flash in his eyes that Steve has almost gotten used to, and an answering heat in Steve’s stomach that doesn’t surprise him even a little.

 _Fifteen years_ , Steve thinks, and takes a long pull of his beer.

It’s been fifteen years since Chin Ho Kelly graduated from the police academy with flying colors - fast-tracked to becoming a Detective, and on a team with Jack McGarrett. Fifteen years since Chin was as green as Kono, maybe greener, hanging out on this very spot of beach for the HPD barbecues Steve’s mom used to throw. Fifteen years since Steve was a self-absorbed football jock with a raging hard-on for his dad’s new protege, a brand new lock on his bedroom door, and no sense of boundaries.

Steve remembers being pretty fucking self-assured even then, even when he was freaked out by how much he wanted this, wanted to press Chin against the inside of his bedroom door, his parents just downstairs, half the unit already passed out drunk on the sand.

It was the first time Steve ever kissed a guy, and the last for a really long time.

*

 _”No,” Chin had said when Steve pulled back. “This is not happening, Steve.”_

 _”Why?”_

 _”Because you’re seventeen,” Chin said, his voice steady and sure. But Steve could feel the rabbit thump of his pulse under his fingers where they were curled around Chin’s wrist. They were both in board shorts, still damp from the water, and Chin’s hair curled around his ears. Steve was already a little taller than Chin, already had a few solid pounds on him, and when he leaned in, fingers sliding over Chin’s bare shoulder, Chin gasped._

 _“You’re twenty-one,” Steve replied with a grin, and he let his hips grind against Chin’s. “You’re not an old man.”_

 _“Steve,” Chin said, eyes dark and a little desperate. “We can’t.”_

 _“We can,” Steve pressed, and to prove his point, he kissed the sharp jut of Chin’s cheekbone._

 _Chin pushed him away, hard, eyes closed. “ **I** can’t,” he said, “I work for your dad. I’m PD now, and I can’t, okay?” It was code for ‘this isn’t something other people would understand’, and Steve was seventeen and horny and maybe even in love, and he knew what it was like to be scared of who you are, but all he remembers feeling is betrayed and embarrassed and so fucking **hurt**._

 _“I won’t tell anyone,” Steve said, because if that’s what it takes to get Chin to stop running from him, he’d do it. He’d keep Chin’s secret as well as he’d kept his own._

 _“Steve,” Chin says, and he looked just wrecked, his hands pushing through his black hair. “It’s not that easy. We all make choices, hoaaloha.”_

 _“You’re a fucking coward,” Steve said, seventeen and full of righteous indignation. Chin flinched. “Get out,” Steve said, and five minutes later, the sound of Chin’s bike roaring away from the house made him punch a hole in his bedroom wall._

 _They only saw each other once more before Steve graduated._

 _“Annapolis?” Chin asked him at the station, eyes cutting to where Jack McGarrett was standing across the room. “Steve, are you sure -”_

 _“We all make choices,” Steve told him._

*

It wasn’t a bad choice, Steve thinks now. The Navy took some of the rough edges Steve had been carrying around for years and polished them, pushed him, molded him into someone who could take orders and give them. He wasn’t less angry at his dad for pushing them all away, or at his mom for not pushing back, or at himself for not dealing with any of the shit that rattled around in his head. But the Navy, the SEALs, they gave Steve direction when he needed it most, a family when his was in shambles. And even if it meant that he had to watch his step when it came to his sex life, well. Steve wasn’t one to kiss and tell in the first place.

“What are you thinking over there, McGarrett?” Chin asks from his seat. It’s fully dark out by now, and Chin’s face is hidden in shadows, but Steve can hear the quiet seriousness in his voice.

Chin remembers. Chin remembers that night as well as Steve does, no matter how much they’ve both tried to convince the other they’ve forgotten. They’ve had six months with the Five-0, and it’s no longer an elephant in the room whenever they’re alone together, but it’s still there, old feelings slipping just below the surface.

Chin never got married, Steve notes. He doesn’t have ties to anyone on the island but his close family, like Kono.

“Why did you stay?” he asks.

Chin is quiet for a long time.

“I mean, after - “ Steve starts, but Chin cuts him off sharply.

“I know what you mean,” he says. “This is my home. I didn’t do a goddamn thing wrong, and they could take my badge and my gun and my reputation, but they couldn’t take my fucking home.”

Steve regrets bringing it up. Chin’s tense in his seat, all the ease between them gone. Talking about shit has never been Steve’s strong suit.

“Come on, old man,” Steve says, pushing to his feet and jogging a few steps to where his surfboard is propped against the deck. There’s a volleyball there too, with a tangled net, and behind that a weather-worn football. Steve grins. “One on one?” he says, and tosses the football in the air a few times.

Chin looks at him, eyes narrowing before he smiles. “Oh, you’re gonna regret this later, Commander,” he says.

Steve grins. “Bring it.”

*

Steve may have spent the last fifteen years in the gym, but Chin’s not giving up an inch in their game. They play in the dark, the ball only visible by the strands of glow-in-the-dark tape Steve wrapped it in years ago. They do half a dozen variations of a throw/catch/run-through before Chin manages to bring Steve down. He kneels in the sand as Steve groans. “I’m gonna earn back some of those records, you don’t speed up, McGarrett,” he grins, and fuck, there is nothing Steve loves more than a challenge.

Chin Ho Kelly has always been a challenge.

One, two more plays, and Steve catches Chin in a fake-left and hooks one foot behind Chin’s heels. He puts a hand out to dampen the fall but they both go down hard, Steve’s elbow only inches from Chin’s jaw. “Ow,” Chin says from under him, but they’re both laughing.

“Your fakes are predictable,” Steve tells him, and he should really get up, but when he shifts, his knees make divets in the sand on either side of Chin’s hips, and Chin’s grinning up at him, the football still in his strong grip, and Steve’s kidding himself if he thinks he’s any better at boundaries and self-control than he was when he was seventeen. He drops to his elbows. Their noses are almost touching. Other parts of them are _definitely_ touching.

“Steve,” Chin says, a little breathless and Steve growls.

“If you’re going to tell me this is a bad idea, you can shut the fuck up. I’m not seventeen, you don’t work for my dad, and the HPD can go to hell.”

Chin stares up at him. “Okay,” he says quietly, and Steve can feel where Chin’s fingers wind in the belt-loops of his jeans. Steve’s breath catches. “What, you need an invitation?” Chin says and rolls his hips up into Steve’s, hard.

“God damn -,” but Chin is kissing him and all Steve can do is moan into it. Chin’s fingers tangle through his hair and pull tight enough to make the corners of Steve’s eyes sting; Chin’s hips are still pushing up into Steve’s, over and over, and he’s not letting Steve up for air, and fuck if it’s not the hottest thing Steve’s felt in years. He’s used to being in charge, but Chin’s not giving him an inch, even from underneath him, his teeth scraping against Steve’s lip hard enough that he knows it’ll be red and bruised in the morning.

There’s friction, but not enough, not nearly fucking enough, and Steve thinks fleetingly about his house fifty yards away and its warm bed and lack of sand, but Chin doesn’t seem to want to let go of him and Steve’s not going to risk fucking this moment up. He hooks one hand under Chin’s thigh and hauls his leg up until Chin gets the idea and winds his leg snugly around Steve’s hip. Steve grinds down into him and Chin cries out, his head thrown back in the sand.

“Fuck, Steve,” Chin pants in his ear, and Steve finds his pulse-point and presses his mouth there. Chin’s hand is still in his hair, arm curled around Steve’s neck so that they’re barely two people anymore, just one writhing mass on the beach, muttering grunts and curses into the dark. Steve hasn’t gotten off like this in years; usually he has a bit more class, and a bit less clothing, maybe the white heat of someone’s mouth stretched around his dick. He thinks about Chin like that, and the image of Chin on his knees, or, fuck, Steve on his knees, tasting, _finally_ , brings Steve right to the edge, makes his hips piston almost out of his control.

“Chin,” he says, his voice almost vibrating from the tension, and Chin tightens his leg around Steve’s thigh, then hauls him up by his hair to kiss him again, wet and sharp and sloppy as Steve comes in his pants. “Oh... oh my god,” Steve says against Chin’s cheek, then gasps as Chin’s hips roll up into him, hard.

“If you stop right now, I will kill you,” Chin grates out, and Steve is pretty sure that’s not an idle threat.

“I’ve got ya,” Steve says, and shifts just a little so that Chin is rutting up against the sharp jut of Steve’s hipbone. “Come on, baby, come on,” he says putting his weight back on his arms and pulling back enough to watch Chin’s face as he falls apart, eyes closed tight, fingers like a vice on Steve’s shoulder. Chin shudders under him for a long minute, and Steve thinks next time, _next time_ , they are doing this without clothes, because Chin’s body is probably fucking gorgeous like that, all rolling lines of muscle under bronze skin.

Chin’s breathing finally evens out, but he doesn’t open his eyes. Steve feels a momentary wave of panic. _Too far, too fast, too much_ , the tiny rational side of his brain is screaming at him. Steve wracks his brain for the right thing to say, the thing that won’t make Chin get on his bike and run again. Sadly, the rest of his brain is still foggy and orgasm-stupid. He settles on a tentative, “Hey.”

Chin still doesn’t open his eyes. “Seriously? We wait fifteen years and you’re going with ‘Hey’?” he asks, his chest rising and falling in gentle laughter.

“Well, you’re not helping,” Steve snaps back, and Chin winds his arm back around Steve’s neck and pulls him down flush against Chin’s chest, his nose pressed to Chin’s throat.

“Sometimes silence is golden, brah,” Chin murmurs. “We’re good.”

Steve winds his arm around Chin’s waist and lets the island breeze cool his sweat-soaked skin.

“Hey, Kelly,” he says a few minutes later, and Chin hums at him. “Race you to the shower?”

Chin’s eyes slide open slowly. “Oh, man. You are never gonna learn.”

They break Steve’s back door handle and knock over the hall table, but Steve wins by half a second and Chin doesn’t seem to care at all, pushing him back under the spray and peeling their clothes off soaking wet. The kisses here are slower and languorous, hands everywhere, exploring. Steve’s seventeen-year-old self just about passes out when Chin wraps his long fingers around Steve’s dick and strokes firmly. “We’re good,” Steve breathes against Chin’s lips, just to hear it again.

“Better than good,” Chin shoots back. “Now shut the fuck up.”

He may be six months out of the Navy, but Steve can still be pretty good at taking orders. “Done,” he says, and then his mouth has better things to do.


End file.
